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Morell wins easily in Fleischmanns mayoral race

By Jay Braman Jr.
Dave Morell defeated incumbent Malcolm Becker last Wednesday in the race for mayor in the Village of Fleishmanns. Morell received 70 votes. Becker, who was a write-in candidate, got 13 votes. Morell said this week that even though he would not be officially sworn in until April 6 there’s no time like the present.
“I’ve already started,” he said in a telephone interview. “This is a transition time. Right now we’re building a team and we plan to hit the ground running.”
The first village board meeting that Morell will preside over is scheduled to take place on April 13.
In the meantime, the mayor elect said he is busy talking to the local fire company, the staff at the waste water treatment plant, town and village road crews and anyone and everyone who has some relationship with village government. The goal, he said, is to open up lines of communication and also help him get up to speed on the specific issues affecting the village.
Morell, who works at Belleayre Mountain Ski Center and publicly supports the proposed Belleayre Resort Project, is also in the process of trying to tap into one of the village’s greatest resources, its residents. Morell wants to learn what skills residents have and how those skills can benefit Fleischmanns.
First, he wants to assemble a needs-assessment committee, made up of residents, to compile a list of issues important to the community.
He also wants help in creating a new Web site for the village. Not just with the usual government listing, like village board minutes, but something that would be a place where Web surfers would want to spend time.
In other election news, Todd Pascarella is a new member of the Fleischmanns Village Board of Trustees.
The race for two open seats on the village’s board of trustees was much closer than the mayoral race, with Todd Pascarella and incumbent Martin Moralis being named to the board with 60 and 40 votes, respectively. The third candidate, incumbent Harriet Grossman, received 37 votes.